


There's Someplace He'd Rather Be

by capeswithhoods



Series: Hypodermics On The Shores [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capeswithhoods/pseuds/capeswithhoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim has been dead for a week and Sebastian isn’t the best at coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Someplace He'd Rather Be

_♪ He says, “Bill, I believe this is killing me”  
As a smile ran away from his face  
“Well, I’m sure that I could be a movie star  
If I could get out of this place” ♪_   
  
Sebastian is on his way to getting drunk when his phone goes off, and he’d normally ignore it - press dismiss or just let it go to voice-mail, except that his ringtone is definitely not the one he’d had it set to.   
  
He doesn’t even  _like_  Billy Joel.   
  
The phone is still buzzing and singing at Sebastian as he picks it up, and the screen is alight with an unknown caller from an American number. The only American Sebastian knows isn’t someone he ever really wanted to deal with, let alone  _now_.   
  
He answers anyway, puts the phone up to his ear, and the same fucking song is playing, blaring into the speaker so it’s almost distorted.   
  
Billy Joel may be in the mood for a melody, but Sebastian is definitely not in the mood for this shit. “What the fuck do you want?” he yells into the phone, and as soon as his own words stop ringing in his ears, the line goes dead, faint electric hum all that remains, and it makes Sebastian swear under his breath.   
  
——-   
  
Three hours later, Sebastian is mostly sober, freshly showered, and has a suitcase packed full of clothes, guns, money, and all the information he could gather that might potentially be useful to him.   
  
It didn’t take much effort for Sebastian to find out that the call had been made from a payphone in Boston, Massachusetts, so that’s where he buys a non-stop, one-way ticket to, and within the next hour, he’s on his way to Heathrow Airport where he will have to pay off security to get through with his suitcase.   
  
Flying has never been Sebastian’s favourite mode of transport, and Jim had always made fun of him for getting worked up over a little turbulence, but Jim isn’t here now, and his fingers tighten around the armrests and the woman in the seat next to him pretends he doesn’t exist.   
  
Nearly eight hours after boarding the plane, Sebastian lands on American soil for the first time, and it only takes him three minutes to decide that he hates it.   
  
Outside Logan International Airport, however, Sebastian reevaluates his opinion and decides that maybe America isn’t so bad - at least maybe  _Boston_  isn’t so bad, at the very least - and he hails a cab that takes him to a hotel where he can sleep off his jet-lag and start his search for a supposedly dead madman.   
  
——-   
  
Sebastian barely sleeps, but he lays in the unfamiliar bed with crisp clean sheets and forces himself to at least get some rest, because there’s no way he can do this if he doesn’t have a clear mind.   
  
There’s a sign on the door that says “No Smoking” and Sebastian blatantly disregards it, cracks his window open and sits on the small ledge, blowing smoke and flicking his ashes out into the city air.   
  
He’s certain that if Jim is alive and had been in Boston at all that he isn’t here now. This is going to be some sort of sick game, and Sebastian will play along like the good soldier he’d always been for the consulting criminal, but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it. There’s a ball of worry in his stomach, making him feel sick, and he can’t help but wonder if it isn’t Jim, if it’s someone just fucking with him, but who else could it be?   
  
So after he finishes his smoke, Sebastian makes a few phone calls, swears loudly and punches the wall when they don’t turn up anything useful, and he spends the rest of the day with an aching hand.   
  
——-   
  
Sebastian works better when he has background noise, so while he pours over the maps of the United States that he has spread across the hotel floor, he has the news on the television, just loud enough to hear. There hasn’t been anything exciting going on in America, apparently, just politics that Sebastian couldn’t care less about, until a report about a possible bombing catches his attention.   
  
 _“—explosion which was initially blamed on a faulty gas line is now under further investigation for what may have been an intentional bombing—”_    
  
The wave of nausea and desperate hope that washes over Sebastian is overwhelming and he only listens to the television long enough to hear where the report was from before he presses the power button and picks up his phone to buy his next plane ticket


End file.
